


Heaven Is (A Place Doug Forcett Got 92% Right)

by millepertuis



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mutual Pining, Only Virtual Zombies Were Harmed in the Making of This Story, Season/Series 01, Secret Nerd Eleanor, Sharing a Bed, minor Tahani Al-Jamil/Real Eleanor Shellstrop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millepertuis/pseuds/millepertuis
Summary: “So we’re not soulmates,” Eleanor said, and sliced a zombie in two. “Who cares?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slipshod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipshod/gifts).



> Title inspired by Lana Del Rey's _Video Games_.
> 
> This is canon compliant up to and including episode 9.
> 
> Happy Yuletide!

 

Something was ringing. Eleanor mumbled, turned on her other side, and shoved her head under a pillow.

It was the door bell. The door bell was ringing. The door bell _kept_ ringing _. There’s a special kind of hell for people who go about visiting other people before noon_ , Eleanor reflected, and then, as she woke up some more and remembered where she was: _There really should be at least_.

Eleanor’s usual door-answering strategy was pretty much to let it resolve itself. Roommates dealt with it, or people went away on their own, and that’s how it worked.

People who went to the Good Place probably answered their door in a timely manner though, so she crawled out of bed and hazily made her way to the door, only to see Chidi had already answered it. Of course.

It was Tahani. Of course.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” Tahani said, looking back and forth between them. _It’s nine forking am_ , Eleanor thought, but before she could say anything of the sort, Tahani’s eyes jumped from Eleanor’s bedroom to the couch that was still made up for Chidi and made the obvious conclusion. She adopted an air of such perfect solicitude she had to have practiced it in front of a mirror and said, “Are you guys having a fight?”

“What? No,” Eleanor denied, reflexively putting an arm around Chidi.

“It’s alright,” Tahani assured them, though her face said, _Already?_ “All couples go through rough patches—not me and Jianyu, of course—”

“That’s because you don’t actually talk,” Eleanor muttered under her breath. Chidi elbowed her—that skinny dude had some really sharp elbows—and Tahani pursed her lips.

“Anyway,” she said, “I only wanted to drop by and invite you over for a little gathering tonight, just the four of us, but if you’re having—” her voice dropped—“ _problems_ , then—”

“No! No problems!”

“We’d be delighted,” Chidi cut in.

 

 

“Why is she always asking us on double dates?” he asked while they were folding the sheets, sounding completely bewildered. “We’re terrible company.”

Eleanor couldn’t let that go—unlike the corners of the sheet, which she had already dropped twice. “Um, excuse me?”

He gave her a flat look.

“We abandoned her at that gallery opening just three days ago because you broke a sculpture—”

“Hey, it _did_ look like something you’d hang your coat on—”

“—and we were so busy trying to fix it that we completely forgot about her and Jianyu.”

“—and that’s just one incident, anyway.”

“What about yesterday? You made up this horrible cocktail and after Tahani actually went and made it for you, you emptied it in a flower pot.” He went to put the sheets back in their closet. “And all their plants started growing and taking over the room, so then we convinced them to play hide-and-seek and locked them in a closet for two hours so they wouldn’t see.”

“Yeah, okay, fine, we’re pretty terrible.”

He puffed up like he was going to protest the label for himself before resignedly nodding.

“Anyway,” she said, gathering Chidi’s pillows, “she obviously keeps asking us out because she’s lonely. She spends her days stuck with a monk who doesn’t talk. She’s literally desperate.”

“Wait,” he said, “why are you bringing my pillows to your room? Eleanor? I’m not going to sleep in there with you! I can just—get up earlier and make up the couch again! I can go back to my own apartment! Eleanor?”

 

 

 

“Thank you again for inviting us,” Chidi said as they started in on the main course, making sure to look at both their hosts in turn. Jianyu hadn’t spoken a word all night—that vow of silence thing or something—but Chidi was determined to include him in the conversation regardless. There had been a lot of meaningful nodding so far.

“Oh, but we _love_ having you over,” Tahani exclaimed. Jianyu nodded.

Eleanor and Chidi looked down at their plates, and then at their joined hands. They had been pointedly holding hands on top of the table since the beginning of the meal—look how in love we are! true soulmates! nothing to see here!—but it was getting awkward, especially since Eleanor was left-handed. Try eating asparagus with your non-dominant hand.

She kind of wanted to keep it up for the rest of the night though, if only to see Tahani’s face as she tore pieces off the duck with her teeth. Chidi gave her a freezing look like he could tell what she was thinking and extricated his hand from hers. He wiped it on his slacks—rude—and started in on the duck with his fork and knife like a civilized person. Boring.

Tahani smiled at them.

“It’s just so much _nicer_ to cook for several people rather than just us two,” she said. “But"—she clucked her tongue—“you already know that, of course.”

“Yes,” Eleanor said, narrowing her eyes, “of course.”

She caught Jianyu longingly gazing at her plate. She gave a look at his own plain rice—probably another monk thing—and winced.

“That’s rough, buddy,” she commiserated.

Some more meaningful nodding.

 

 

“Really,” Tahani said as she saw them off at the door, “don’t worry about returning the favor. Eleanor practically just got here, I’m sure you’re not up to hosting anything right now.”

Eleanor smiled through clenched teeth.

 

 

 

“ _I’m sure you’re not up to hosting anything right now_ ,” Eleanor mimicked to herself as she set her alarm. “What a—what a—what a total _hazmot_.”

“What?”

She turned her head and saw Chidi coming out of the bathroom.

“Nothing,” she said. So she’d watched a couple of _Farscape_ episodes while high at some point in her life. What of it.

She wasn't a nerd or anything.

“Are you wearing pajamas?” Eleanor asked, infusing her voice with all the scorn and derision she could muster—which was, like, a lot.

He ignored her and got under the covers.

“Nerd,” she said anyway, and cuddled up to him. That was one upside of having to share a bed so nosy neighbors wouldn't realize you weren't soulmates and you wouldn't get kicked out of paradise: personal space heater and teddy bear all in one. Not that Eleanor was actually a cuddler or anything, but Chidi was obviously the type.

Chidi looked down at her distrustfully.

“Do you steal blankets?” he asked. “Do you kick people in your sleep? I feel like you probably do something really horrible.”

“Pshh,” she said, and steadily ignored the glow-in-the-dark clown on the ceiling.

 

 

She managed to wake up and let him out of the stranglehold before Chidi completely lost consciousness anyway, she didn’t know what he had to complain about.

 

 

 

Her alarm woke her at an ungodly hour and valiantly kept ringing after she threw it at the wall.

Chidi’s side of the bed was empty—and already made. Of course.

“Eleanor?” he called from the living room.

“One minute!” she called back, and only let herself stay in her warm and cozy bed for one minute—two—no more than five—before going to wash up and dress.

“Are you alright?” Chidi asked when she joined him, putting an actual bookmark in his book—nerd—and closing it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you up on this side of noon.”

She harrumphed. “That’s because it’s the devil’s hour. But today, we’re going to the market,” she announced grandly.

“The market?”

“Yes, the organic market, you know, that place where they sell—vegetables and stuff.”

“Is this because I talked about missing ratatouille last night?”

Eleanor jumped on it.

“Of course! I’ll go with you and you can buy—whatever, and then make it, and _voilà_!”

“How… uncharacteristic of you,” Chidi said, suspicious, but he put down his book and made to get up.

 

 

Chidi was indecently fondling zucchinis when Eleanor caught sight of her quarry.

“Oh, look,” she said, “there’s Tahani and Jianyu. What a coincidence.”

“Not much of a coincidence, she told us last night—”

“Is Jianyu napping standing up?” she interrupted.

“What? No. He’s obviously meditating.”

They tilted their heads and considered Jianyu, who was really starting to list to one side.

“Well, it _is_ eight in the morning,” she sympathized. She didn’t feel like she had put enough horror into the word so she repeated it: “ _Eight_.”

“Maybe that’s a Buddhist technique,” Chidi tried, but he sounded doubtful.

She rolled her eyes and loudly called Tahani over.

“Funny running into you here!” she told her.

“Well, I did say last night I usually—”

“We were just thinking we should totally have you over! Chidi’s making ratatouille.”

“We were?”

“How _nice_ of you! But we couldn’t possibly impose on you, especially if things are still tense between—”

“We insist! It’s the least we could do, after such a _lovely_ dinner last night,” Eleanor said with a smile, making sure to show all her teeth.

“Oh, well,” Tahani said bashfully.

“Tonight?”

“Tonight then!”

They watched her trot away.

“You do remember that they think we’re soulmates, right?” Chidi checked.

“So?”

“We’re gonna have to—act in love! Again!”

“Ugh,” she said.

Tahani was leaving the market.

“Did she forget Jianyu? She totally forgot Jianyu.”

 

 

 

“You know,” Chidi said a couple of weeks later, “I was pretty proud the first time you invited them over. I didn’t think implied social obligations were something you…” He trailed off.

“Gave a fork about?” she supplied helpfully as she dropped the plates in the sink.

“ _Noticed_ ,” he stressed, turning on the water a minute to let them soak. “And I’m very happy you’re making such an effort, and, to be honest, quite surprised you’ve actually been participating in both the preparations and the cleaning up instead of making me do all the work—”

“Hey, I totally pull my weight around here.”

He visibly swallowed back a retort—or possibly a short joke—and kept rambling: “But we’ve somehow gotten stuck in this infernal circle where they keep inviting us to dinner or lunch or _brunch_ so we keep inviting them back so _they_ keep inviting us back, and may I say something?”

“Can’t stop you.”

“I do feel the logical course of action when you’re hiding a huge secret and you’re a terrible liar—which, may I remind you, is our current situation—the logical course of action then is _not_ to spend all our time with people likely to find us out! In fact, it is the very _opposite_ of that! Again, I’m very proud of your attempts to create a welcoming—”

Eleanor snorted.

“No one’s trying to be nice here, nerd. She’s trying to show me up and I’ll _die first_.”

He blinked.

“You did die. _Obviously_ , we’re all dead, that’s why we’re here, I don’t know why I started with this—are you telling me you’re having some kind of one-sided competition to—out-nice Tahani?”

“Oh, it’s not one-sided, Pinky. Now open the fridge so I can take out the cake.”

He did.

“That’s a wedding cake,” he said after he managed to pick his jaw up the floor. “That’s a five-tiered wedding cake. Did someone get married? Did _we_ get married?”

“It’s not a wedding cake.”

“It’s white! And _five-tiered_.”

“So?”

“There are four little figurines on top like we got four-way married to Tahani and Jas—Jianyu!”

“There are?” she asked, trying to peer at the top of the cake.

“Didn’t you make this?”

She gave him a scornful look.

“You got Janet to get it for you.”

“ _Obviously_ I got Janet to get it for me.”

He rubbed at the skin between his eyebrows and sighed.

“I’m trying to decide if it’s a good thing you’re being a good neighbor regardless of the reason why, or if a good action motivated by wrong motives should—”

“Blah, blah, blah. Look at it this way: _you_ can go along with it because you’re a nice boring person who does nice boring things like hosting dinners for people who have invited you over first, and _I_ can do it because she’s totally looking down on me and I want to make her eat her words—”

“ _What words?_ There have been no words! Whatsoever!”

“—and this way we both get what we want! Compromise.”

“Why is this my life?” Chidi muttered to himself.

“‘Cause you were boring as all frak when you were alive and that got you sent to the Good Place. Now come along, dear,” she said sunnily, and grabbed the cake to bring it back to the table. “We don’t want to keep our guests waiting.”

Chidi scowled.

“This cake is taller than you, I hope you realize.”

“How _dare_ you?”

 

 

 

Eleanor learnt three things at the non-denominational winter fair: people were really frelling bored in the afterlife, Janet could apparently clone herself and man multiple stands at once, and Chidi was really enthusiastic about fairs.

Eleanor had only agreed to come for the cotton candy, and also because Chidi had been making a point during their lessons about selflessness and doing things to make other people happy—but mostly for the cotton candy.

Chidi was really into it. He kept running off to play games or dragging her on rides, and his eyes were all sparkly. It wasn’t cute or anything.

They were debating whether going to the bumper cars and purposely crashing into everyone would out her as Not Good Place-worthy or if even saintly people liked to crash into everyone while in a bumper car when Chidi stopped in his tracks, an unholy light in his eyes.

“I’m gonna win that bear,” he declared and immediately walked off to a ring toss game that offered a giant teddy bear as a prize.

She should have used this lapse in attention to get away—now that she had her cotton candy there was really no need to keep mingling—but she found herself following him and watching him get weirdly fixated on the game. She spotted another food stand and munched on some popcorn as he lost repeatedly.

“You look like you have a weird childhood hang-up about ring-tossing games,” she said conversationally. He ignored her. “Or possibly bears. Did you lose your teddy bear somewhere when you were a kid and it traumatized you ever after?” Still no reaction. “Did you ask for one for Christmas and you never got it? Is that you supernerd origin story?”

She devolved into heckling him and throwing popcorn at him when he missed. She aimed for the top of his head, but he didn’t seem to notice, so Eleanor aimed for his neck, though she mostly only got his shoulders—his slumped shoulders—

“Settle down, sugarpuss,” she said. She gave him the bag of popcorn and rolled back her sleeves. “I’ve got it.”

It took her three tries to win, and even then only because she had kneeled on the little counter, but he looked strangely touched as she handed him the bear afterwards, and it took him two full minutes to get on her case about the cheating.

They were still bantering about it—“Small people don’t cheat; we’re crafty”—when she caught sight of Tahani and Jianyu, strolling around the stands, smiling and sparkling at each other like they were in an online dating website ad. Tahani saw them too and started waving at them.

“Quick,” she said, “Tahani is looking over here, let’s make out.”

“Wait, what?” Chidi started to ask, which turned out to have been a bad idea as she had already grabbed him by the lapels and was yanking him to her. He lost his balance and their teeth knocked painfully together. She reflexively jerked her head back, which didn’t help him regain his balance. He fell over; took her down with him. She felt something give in Chidi’s nose as it ran into her chin, and she knocked her head against the sidewalk.

 

 

Eleanor glared at Chidi as one of the Janets was—doing something to her concussion. She was pretty sure the satanic chanting was not a necessary part of the proceedings. Chidi was glaring back at her, an impressive feat with his head tipped forward, a bloody nose, and a chipped tooth.

“You could have just said you didn’t want to make out with me,” she muttered sulkily under her breath.

Chidi kept pressing on the bit of Eleanor’s sleeve she had ripped for him to put against his nose and glared harder. He looked like he was despairing of every single one of his afterlife choices while another Janet was—doing something to him. Seriously, the creepy chanting was just a weird joke, right?

 

 

 

Chidi was pretty skittish that night when she wrapped herself around him—honestly, you try to strangle a guy in his sleep _once_ —“And then you tried to concuss me!”—but he eventually closed his arms around her and it was… It was nice.

Until he started talking, at least.

“You know Tahani’s not participating in your one-upmanship contest, right? She’s just being nice.”

“That’s what she wants you to think,” Eleanor scoffed.

He sighed.

“Even if she is—you know you don’t have to compete with anyone, don’t you? You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.”

 _I do_ , she thought. That’s what the lessons were about: she had to become good to stay here, and she didn’t know if she could, if she even wanted to. It was tiring to be good. It was tiring to care.

“Aren’t you tired of being nice all the time?” she asked him. “Don’t you ever feel like telling people to fork off?”

“According to Aristotle, there is a difference between being virtuous and acting virtuously, but we’ve already talked about how he says that acting virtuously is part of the process towards becoming virtuous.”

“So you do, huh?”

“Go to sleep, Eleanor,” he said, his tone conveying he’d very much like her to fork off right now.

She quieted down, but she couldn’t settle down her mind.

There was never any noise here at night. No cars honking outside, no loud partying, no loud arguing from the neighbors. It was just quiet. It had been disturbing at first. Scary, like the whole world was holding its breath waiting for something terrible to happen, for someone to barge in and drag her out of bed and out of heaven. But it felt different with Chidi here, with the soft sound of his breathing, the solid reality of his body next to hers.

She knew all these useless things about him: the spot that made his voice go high when she tickled him; that he would eat carrots but didn’t actually like them; she knew his least favorite track on his favorite album. She had never cared about these kinds of things before, but she did now. She wanted to know everything about him.

Sometimes, she thought she wanted him to know everything about her, too.

“I get scared,” she confessed into his shoulder.

Chidi made a sleepy noise. “That they’ll send you back?”

She didn’t answer.

“They won’t, I promise. I’ll help you. No one is going to make you leave.”

“Good,” she said, voice rough.

“Yeah,” he said eventually, and echoed her: “That’s good.”

He felt like someone she could hold on to.

 

 

 

 

 

“And how are we doing today?” Michael asked. He propped his chin on his hands and blinked at her.

Eleanor felt an almost irrepressible urge to confess; she was only saved by the fact she didn’t know what to confess first: _I’m not supposed to be here_ or _The thing with the soap bubbles was my fault, I just didn’t want to do the dishes_ , or even: _I told Tahani she would rock that dress and that was a total lie, that dress was terrible, it should be set on fire._

“Oh, I’m fine, really,” she settled on, and then remembered to smile. The back of her neck was sweating.

“How about Chidi? Are you doing okay with Chidi?”

“ _I don’t have a crush on Chidi!_ ” she burst out.

Michael looked at her blankly.

“I mean, what we have is so much _stronger_ than a crush,” she corrected herself.

Michael didn’t seem to question it.

“Excellent, excellent,” he said. “So everything’s going well? No cohabitation issues, no communication issues, or any lingering trauma from your violent and/or horribly embarrassing death?”

“None of that. We’re very happy and—in love.”

“You are?”

“Super duper in love,” she confirmed.

“Oh, that’s great,” he said with a relieved sigh. “I’m supposed to check in and see how every couple’s doing after a month—or triad, we have a couple of those. See there’s been no mistake—”

“No mistake here!”

“—that everyone’s happy, that sort of thing.”

She _was_ happy. She hadn't actually taken the time to think about it in between everything, but she was. She liked being here. She liked the house, in spite of the clown paintings, and she liked Chidi. She even liked Tahani and Jason and Michael and how weirdly nice everyone was here—mostly. She liked Chidi, with his tucked-in shirts and his quiet strength; how his hand felt in hers. She liked the way he said her name—all the different ways he had ever said it: urgent, exasperated, long-suffering; surprised, fond, relieved. It felt like he never said her name the same way twice.

“Let’s say, if I asked you to rate how happy you are as a couple,” Michael was going on, “on a scale of—” He cut himself off. “I’m sorry, we were using celebrity couples for that part, but this Brangelina break-up has really put a wrench in the works. I mean, what is the world coming to? Is love even real?”

“We’re very happy,” she interrupted. “The happiest, really. In fact, I can’t wait to go home to Chidi and just—grab his face and—lay one on him.”

“Grab his face? Lay one on?” Michael looked alarmed. “I think those are on the watchlist.”

“I mean, I _literally_ can’t wait, I have to go right now,” Eleanor insisted, and rushed out of there.

“Janet? Janet?” she heard Michal call. “This list is very confusing. Janet?”

 

 

 

“Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious,” Eleanor chanted to herself on her way to the mansion, where Tahani was throwing yet another party—seriously, could that girl be any more obvious about her obsessive need to be liked?

Chidi was going to be there.

She didn’t know why that made her feel all weird inside. She had done a pretty good job of avoiding him since she had left Michael’s office earlier in the day, but he kept popping up in her thoughts and just—jumbled everything.

 _Maybe he’ll be busy inside_ , Eleanor told herself. If she could just sneak in and get a location on him, she could probably make sure they didn’t have any opportunity to talk.

“Eleanor!” Tahani opened the door.

“Hi.”

“And Chidi!”

Eleanor turned around and there he was, of course: walking up to them, carrying a bottle of wine—of course he wouldn’t come to a party empty-handed—, his shirt tucked in, as always. He looked like a complete dork.

“Hey, dude,” she said when he came up to them. She put her arm around his neck and dragged him down to give him a noogie. _There_ , she thought. Casual.

Maybe _too_ casual? Tahani was looking at her weirdly.

“My soulmate that I love!” she corrected herself, and then, because it was in reach, and because she had some kind of brain aneurysm or something, she kissed the top of his head. She immediately felt like dying. “My soulmate that I love in a regular soulmate-way,” she backtracked, letting him go and starting to panic. “And not in a way people who would hypothetically not be soulmates would love each other. Because we are soulmates. Just two soulmates. Lovin’ on each other.”

There was the regrettable appearance of finger guns.

“Alright,” Chidi said slowly. “I’m going to—go inside now.”

Victory! This was get-me-away-from-the-lunatic speed-walking, not this person-has-feelings-and-I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-it speed-walking—Eleanor had some expertise on both, if she may say so herself. She was safe!

Tahani was still staring at her.

“I’m fine,” Eleanor said, voice high. “Everything’s fine.”

 

 

There was wine everywhere, and Eleanor couldn’t drink any of it. She couldn’t even have one glass, because if she did she’d have another, and then another, and then she’d end up confessing to the identity theft investigator guy that she was an illegal immigrant or— _worse_.

So no wine. Which was excruciating, especially when Tahani and Jianyu-Jason were going on and on about their first meeting—well, Tahani was rambling, while Jason was trying not to give the impression he deeply regretted being soulmate with someone who would describe his eyes as ‘softly sparkling with the joy of blossoming love.’ He was mostly failing, though it was possible Eleanor was projecting her own horror onto him.

No, the dude was definitely inching toward the closest exit.

Eleanor should have been running after him, because Tahani turned to her next.

“What about you and Chidi?” she asked, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a tissue. “What was your first meeting like?”

“A-OK,” Eleanor said in a croak, which was just embarrassing.

Chidi sent her a _What was that?_ look from the other side of the room.

 _HELP ME_ , she sent back.

“It was everything you said it was,” Chidi told Tahani briefly, but she kept looking expectantly at them. That was the problem with nice people: they actually wanted to hear what you had to say, or they did a really good job pretending they did anyway.

“It was wonderful, really,” Chidi said. Tahani smiled encouragingly. He looked down. “It felt like—like I had been waiting all my life for this person without knowing it, and now they were here.”

“That’s _beautiful_ , Chidi,” Tahani gushed.

“Yes,” Eleanor said distantly. “That’s beautiful.”

 

 

 

“So we’re not soulmates,” Eleanor said, and sliced a zombie in two. “Who _cares_?”

There was a child zombie. She sliced her too.

“You’re kinda scaring me,” Jason said.

“Did I say you could talk?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied obediently, and settled down on the floor. She had taken his spot when she had taken over his video game.

Good! She didn’t feel bad about it!

“Who cares about being nice and, and doing good things, and helping others, anyway! I don’t! I wouldn’t want to deserve to be here if they begged me! He should thank his lucky stars he got me,” Eleanor muttered. “Where would he be without me? With a soulmate who’d be good all the time and never presented him with interesting ethical dilemmas? He’d be all—bored, and settled down, and… happy.”

A horde of zombies suddenly burst in the room. Eleanor’s character got gruesomely killed. Figured.

“Who cares!” she said again, more viciously.

“It kinda sounds like you do,” Jason said.

“I don’t! What’s so great about soulmates, anyway?”

“Dunno.” Jason obviously had a problem with rhetorical questions. “I think it’s about having one person who’s always on your side, you know? Somebody who’s always gonna love you, who’s always gonna stick around.”

There was something stuck in Eleanor’s throat. _I could do that_ , she wanted to say. _He doesn’t need some stupid soulmate, I could give him that_.

But she couldn’t. That’s why it was easier to pretend she didn’t want to. Eleanor was selfish and lazy and she bailed at the first sign of difficulty; she had spent her whole life keeping people at arm’s length because it was easier not to care. Chidi wanted—he wanted someone _good_ , someone to go through the afterlife with. Someone who’d put him first sometimes.

And Eleanor couldn’t be any of that.

 _You could try, though_ , she thought to herself. _You’re all he’s got._

She wiped hastily at her face. “You know, Jason, this place—no, I’m not calling it _that_ , it’s getting a new name, by the way—but it’s kinda cool, actually.”

“Thanks, man.”

 

 

They were on a two-player game—Jason had been promoted to sitting on the arm rest, she could try being nice but this chair was comfy and there had to be a limit somewhere—when Chidi burst in the room, muttering something to himself. A gush of water followed in after him.

“You’re here,” he said when he caught sight of them, and then tried to push the door shut and stop the flow of water.

“Who’s Josh?” Jason said. “I’m Jason. I mean I’m Jianyu. I mean… Oh, man, I don’t know what I mean.”

Chidi looked back at them, then immediately back at the door that he was struggling to close, his soaked shirt sticking to his straining—

“The fountain blew up,” Chidi said. Then, as it garnered no reaction: “ _Help me close the door!_ ”

They eventually managed it, though too late for the gaming system.

“I was totally gonna beat that one, too,” Eleanor complained. “What?” she asked when she realized Chidi and Jason were both staring at her. Then it hit her. “Hey, that wasn’t me! Why am _I_ always the one responsible any time something weird happens here? Hello, I’m not the only one who doesn’t belong here, remember?”

“Yes,” Jason said, “but I’m not mean. Also,” he added reflectively, “I don’t like, talk to anybody.”

At which point they realized the water was still filtering in through the door frame.

 

 

 

 _Don’t be suspicious_ , Eleanor tried to psych herself again as she brushed her teeth. Except what qualified as suspicious behavior? She spent every night sticking to him like glue! He’d probably find it weird if she suddenly stopped her boa constrictor impression.

Chidi was already in bed, reading.

“Weird about that fountain, huh?” she said brightly, getting into bed. She immediately wished _she_ had been the one confused with an unspeaking Buddhist monk, or possibly with a pirate with her tongue cut off. Who knew what kind of horrible conclusions he would draw from a fountain blowing up in Eleanor’s vicinity minutes after what he had said to Tahani! Why didn’t she just ask him how he’d feel about her having a crush on him while she was at it!

Not that she had a crush on him.

“It’s fine,” Chidi said, “Janet said there shouldn’t be any damage. Michael saw, but I managed to convince him he had eaten a pot brownie, so we’re probably safe.”

“Wow, good thinking,” Eleanor said, impressed. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Thanks,” he said drily. “I should have known a spot of gaslighting was all it would take to earn your approval.”

“Hey, I’m not a bad person. I’m like, an _okay_ person. An okay-ish person. This is about survival, dude.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” he said after a pause. Something inside Eleanor’s thoracic cage fluttered.

Chidi coughed.

“Anyway, we should probably do some good action in the morning, just in case.”

“Do we really have to?”

“Yes.”

“Can getting you laid be my good action of the day?”

“No.”

“Ugh.”

Chidi closed his book and put it on the nightstand.

“Oh, what did Michael want this morning?” he asked, turning to her.

“Oh, you know, nothing much. Just checking in. I think he’s taking the Brangelina divorce pretty hard.”

He blinked at her.

“Alright,” he said, and turned off the light.

It was strange, lying there in the dark, torn between running out of bed and latching on to him. Did he feel weird, too? Was he thinking about her the way she was thinking about him? Or was he thinking about something else entirely? He had sounded wistful, when talking about what it had felt like to meet his soulmate—what _he_ had felt like, until she had told him who she was, and single-handedly ruined paradise for him.

“Sorry about… You know, not being your soulmate,” she said.

“It’s fine,” he said stiffly.

“It probably sucks, seeing all these people walking around with their soulmates, and not having your own. It must be lonely.” He didn’t answer. He _was_ lonely. Maybe he just needed some affection. “We could make out,” she offered charitably.

“How about we just cuddle,” he said.

“Ugh.”

They cuddled.

 

 

 

“No. No, I can’t anymore,” Eleanor declared, and pushed her notebook away from her. When had she gotten a notebook? When had she become this person? “I can’t go on like this anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Chidi asked. He had paused in the middle of writing a word on the chalkboard: NIE—

It was probably Nietzsche. Eleanor knew how to spell Nietzsche now. N-I-E-T… S? Alright, so she didn’t know how to spell Nietzsche yet. There was still time. It wasn’t too late.

“This has to stop,” she told Chidi. “We’ve been locked up inside every morning, talking about boring dead people. Oh my god, _we_ are the boring dead people now! That’s what you’ve made of me!”

“What,” he said, flatly.

“I don’t want to hear anymore about—about frakking Plato or—about the problems of consequentialism—while we’re on the subject, may I tell you how bad an idea it is to teach an already quite happily self-serving person about consequentialism, my dude—”

He squinted at her.

“Did you just—”

“Yes, alright, I admit it. Fine. So I’ve seen some _Battlestar Galactica_ episodes. A few. Some _Farscape_. Whatever. I _need_ to swear, Chidi. I can’t deal with this fork bullshirt. I need some _actual swearing_ , and the censors haven’t thought to do their hocus-pocus on fictional swearwords, so it feels really frakking satisfying to get one over on them.”

“Those are sci-fi shows, aren’t they?” Chidi checked. “I’m not really into sci-fi. I’m more of a romcom guy, actually.”

Eleanor gasped.

“Am I… Am I _nerdier_ than you? That can’t be possible.”

He shrugged.

“That’s it,” she said, shooting out of her seat. “We’re going on an adventure.”

 

 

“We’re not stalking anyone this time, are we?” Chidi asked warily once she came out of the coffee shop.

“What?” She handed him his coffee. “No. I’m going to teach you to have _fun_.”

“I know how to have fun.”

She snorted.

“Books aren’t the most fun a boy can have without taking his clothes off,” she said, linking her arm with his and leading him away. Then she looked him over. “Though, if you want to try that…”

“I’ll restrain myself.”

She shrugged.

“This needs to be an exchange of knowledge, my guy. You’ve been teaching me how to—be a better person or whatever, and I’m going to teach you how fun it is not to care about things. To just—do things because you want to do them, without worrying about what other people will do or think or feel.”

Chidi was looking down at his latte. “Why is it written Albert on my cup? Who’s Albert?”

“First lesson: how much _better_ things taste when they’re stolen.”

Chidi gasped like a Victorian spinster aunt. “Eleanor!” He looked around, possibly for a fainting couch, or maybe for the Starbucks police surely coming to arrest him. “Did you get me _blood coffee_?”

“Blood coffee?” She frowned. “Is there blood in it? Because I know a guy who found a scorpion in his once, and let me tell you that could get us a lot of—wait, can we even sue people in here? Oh wait, you meant it like—blood diamonds! blood money! _blood coffee_!” She nodded. “I see what you did there.”

Chidi made an inarticulate screeching noise.

“Look, doesn’t it feel _good_? Like you’ve gotten away with something! You got your coffee without having to wait in line, doesn’t that take a weight off of you?”

“No! And why did you offer to go get us coffee if you didn’t want to wait in line? Now we’re—criminals! Coffee thieves!”

“Dude, chill. It’s not even like anyone’s paying for anything here, remember? What did Albert lose, five minutes of his time? And who names their kid Albert, anyway? _That’s_ the real crime, here.”

“It’s—a complete breach of the social contract.”

“Ugh,” she said, and resolutely decided to move on. “How about we prank Janet, then?”

“What kind of prank?” he asked, suspicious.

Eleanor cast about for an idea. She caught sight of a magic store and inspiration struck.

 

 

“So maybe teaching Janet about practical jokes was a bad idea,” Eleanor admitted as she tried to pat down her hair. “Though she was really quick to get a hold of the electric shock prank.”

“Are we done now?” Chidi asked pitifully. “Can I go home? I promise not to make you study anymore today, which just shows how long I hold on to my principles in the face of opposition—”

“Oh, whatever,” she said, and went to flop down on a bench randomly placed in the middle of the street.

He was still there when she looked around, staring at her.

“Are you alright?” he asked cautiously.

“Fine.”

“You look… upset,” he said, looking at her strangely.

“Well, I’m not.”

She turned on her side so she wouldn’t have to see him, feeling small and useless and, worst of all, ridiculous.

He lifted her legs and sat down next to her, then put her feet down on his lap. She would have snapped at him if he had tried to talk to her, but he didn’t; he just sat there, rubbing soothing circles on her ankle.

She sighed, her face buried into the crook of her elbow so she wouldn’t have to look at him—wouldn’t have to feel his eyes on her.

“You’re gonna make me talk to you, aren’t you?”

“You don’t _have_ to,” he offered.

“We’re roommates, and we’re pretty much stuck here,” she pointed out reasonably. “I can’t exactly move out while you’re at work and change my number just so I don’t have to deal with something awkward. You don’t go to work, so it’d be a pain to find a time I’d be sure you wouldn’t unexpectedly come home, to begin with.”

“Yes, that was the most obviously wrong thing I saw in that scenario as well.”

She sighed again.

“I just—I don’t want this to be one-sided,” she told the back of the bench.

“One-sided?” Chidi repeated evenly.

“Our relationship. I don’t want it to always be you helping me and making changes for me and giving things up for me. I want to help you, too,” she said awkwardly.

“Oh.”

“Look,” she said, raising herself up on her elbows to glare at him. “The way I see it, this soulmate thing, it’s just a buddy system, yeah? It’s about going through life with someone. Right?”

“That’s—surprisingly accurate, I suppose.”

“So I’ll be your buddy.”

“My buddy.”

“Your life partner, whatever,” she said impatiently. “I’ll be that. I’ll have your back. Okay?”

“Okay,” he repeated quietly.

Eleanor thought about what Tahani had said, about softly-sparkling eyes or whatever, and it was mostly complete bullshirt, of course, but maybe there was something there—something soft in Chidi’s eyes as he looked at her right then.

 

 

 

Tahani’s dinners had steadily escalated to three-course meals during the last few weeks; tonight, Eleanor felt like new forks kept appearing on the side of her plate every time she blinked.

Chidi kept smiling at her, muted but somehow still dazzling.

If she tried to be good—if she really tried—

He took her hand in his under the table while they were waiting for dessert, his thumb rubbing over her skin. It felt like their hands had been made to fit together. Maybe they had, she let herself think for a minute.

Maybe they had.

 

 

 

“Is there something you want?” Chidi asked.

Eleanor froze. The napkin she had been trying to fold into a swan dropped to the ground.

“From the kitchen, you mean?” she asked hopefully. “Because if you’re going then yes, I’d very much like—”

“No, I meant…” He cleared his throat. “In general.”

“Like, sexually?” she tried again, feeling desperate. She had felt agitated since the beginning of October—and why did they still have calendars here anyway, what did they need to keep track of time for—but surely he wasn’t…?

“ _No_. Just—nevermind.”

He was.

“Dude. How did you even find out?”

“Find out about what?” Chidi asked, shifty-eyed.

“ _Dude_. I’m dead! I literally died! Dead people don’t have birthdays!”

“You were fine with it when you shoved my face into a cake last month!” he replied hotly.

“A-ha!” she exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “So you admit it! You admit you were fishing for birthday presents ideas! Also, I’m always fine with shoving cake in your face, _obviously_.”

He huffed.

“Who even told you?” she asked, and then imagined the worst possible scenario. “Oh god. Tahani told you. How’d she even find out?”

“I’m not sure, actually. She was pretty evasive about it.”

“Look, Chidi.” She grabbed his face in her hands, and he started to cross his eyes in an effort not to look into hers. “Chidi. Look at me. Is she throwing me a surprise birthday party?”

A bead of sweat formed on Chidi’s forehead. She stared at him harder.

“So what if she is?” Chidi broke. “What’s so bad about that?”

“ _Everything_ ,” Eleanor wailed, letting go of him. She balled up another paper napkin and threw it at his head. Then another. “I don’t celebrate my birthday.”

“Why not? It’s a day where people literally celebrate that you were born, how is that not a thing you like?”

“Hey, I’m not vain, all right?”

He looked at her doubtfully.

“Look, if this is about your rivalry with Tahani again—”

“It’s not about anything!” she yelled, losing her temper. “I just don’t do birthdays, and you’re gonna tell Tahani that, and you’re gonna cancel that party, and I swear if I see anyone coming at me with a birthday cake I’m gonna shove it up their—”

The house shook and a giant paper swan crashed through the wall.

 

 

It was dark when Eleanor came back to the house. She had walked off the anger pretty quickly, but the embarrassment had proved more resilient.

She felt like a kid again, just wanting to be left alone, acutely aware that she wouldn’t be—that in truth, she didn’t _want_ to be.

Chidi was in the kitchen, picking up the scattered shards of the plates that had fallen down and broken when the house had shaken.

She had never felt as aware of the difference between them: when Eleanor was upset, she got angry and took it out on other people until they gave her an excuse to leave; when Chidi was upset, he fixed things.

She knelt down next to him and silently helped him pick up the pieces.

Finally, they threw away the last of the debris, and he leaned back against the wall and looked at her.

“Are we actually gonna deal with the issue now?” he asked.

Eleanor shrugged and went to sit next to him.

“Well, I can’t get drunk and make out with your brother at a family function, so I guess we’re gonna have to.”

He gave her a look, then got up and left the room. He was holding a bottle of Scotch when he came back in. “One out of two?” he offered, and sat back down. He drank and then handed her the bottle.

Eleanor hadn’t even known there was alcohol in the house.

She took a swig.

 _He put his mouth ther_ e _,_ she thought like she was fourteen with a crush. _I’m putting my mouth over where his mouth was_.

“My dad left on my birthday,” she blurted out. He stared at her. “They had been fighting for a while, it wasn’t—sudden, or anything. But he forgot to buy the cake for my birthday party, and they blew up at each other, and he slammed the door when he left, and he didn’t come back and then they got a divorce and I only saw him on the weekends—and I just don’t like celebrating my birthday, alright?”

“Alright,” he said.

 

 

Later still, while they were righting the living room furniture:

“Do you ever think maybe—maybe—”

“Maybe what?”

She didn’t know how to say it.

“Aren’t soulmates supposed to be complimentary?” she settled on.

“I think you mean complementary.”

“Like maybe I’ve got all your pettiness and your laziness and your, you know, coolness, and you got—my ethnics.”

“I _hope_ you mean your ethics.”

She waved her hand about. “What I’m saying is, maybe we _are_ soulmates. Maybe that’s why I’m here!” she said, feeling struck.

“You mean, that the system sent you here even though you don’t belong in the Good Place _because_ you’re my soulmate?”

“That would make as much sense as anything.”

He thought about it for a minute.

“I suppose it’s possible,” he said eventually. “But either way it’s entirely hypothetical: it’s not like we have any way to find out.”

“We could make out,” she offered, “see if sparks fly.”

He scooted slightly away from her.

“Hey, I saw that and I’m frankly offended by it.”

“You’ve been known to plant kisses on unsuspecting people before,” he said severely.

“I really think soulmates are meant to be complimentary.”

“You mean complementary,” he corrected reflexively.

“I really don’t,” she said darkly.

 

 

 

 

 

“Come on, dude,” Eleanor said once Trevor and his crew had left the room. “Quick. Let’s go egg their train as they take off.”

“What?” Chidi said, and, “Why?” and then: “Do we _have_ to?”

He then whined a lot about how childish and petty and beneath them and all of her progress it all was, and how all the others were celebrating Real Eleanor’s arrival and Eleanor’s non-departure and he had his eyes on some little _petit fours_ and he just knew they were going to be all gone by the time they came back, but he also let her drag him all the way to the station, so she figured his heart wasn’t in it.

“I suppose since we’re all dead here and there’s no food shortage, wasting food isn’t much of an issue,” Chidi reflected as they hid behind the corner while the Bad Place crew embarked. “And it is a relatively harmless way, one might even say therapeutic—”

“Yes, yes,” Eleanor cut him off, and handed him the munitions before he proceeded to the next stage of his deliberations, which would be to wonder whether or not he was only saying any of that to justify his own immoral behavior.

The train started moving, so she threw the first egg and whooped.

“There! Take that, Trevor!” she yelled as she threw a couple more, and then proceeded to—forgive the pun—egg Chidi on until he was throwing his as well.

She started yelling reasons why she was taking revenge with each throw—“That’s for asking if I was a natural blonde!”—which was indeed very therapeutic. Chidi followed her example. Perhaps they both got a little too into it.

“— _pork the dork?_ ” Chidi was shouting when the train got out of reach and Eleanor tuned back in. “Like, come on, man! Really? Who _says_ that?”

Eleanor felt strangely buoyant as she looked at him—so relieved and happy it felt like she was floating. She didn’t even protest when he made her go clean up the tracks with him instead of going back to the party; not even when he berated the both of them all throughout.

Chidi didn’t seem able to stop smiling either.

 

 

Real Eleanor was asleep on the couch when they came home. Eleanor helped Chidi carry her to the bed and get her settled, then followed him back to the closet where he started getting out the same linens they had put back all those weeks ago. It suddenly hit Eleanor that it was all over. The secret was out. They didn’t need to pretend anymore.

All those things they had been doing—sharing a bed, holding hands in public, spending most of their days alone together to leave less opportunity for others to find Eleanor out—there was no more need for any of that.

“I asked Michael about our space issue,” Chidi was telling her, whispering so they wouldn’t wake Real Eleanor, “and he got Janet to just—make another room. I’m not really sure how, the house doesn’t actually seem to have changed from the outside—”

“You mean it’s bigger on the inside?” Eleanor joked quietly. “Oh, come on!” she said when Chidi only looked at her blankly.

She made to throw a pillow at him and he smiled at her.

“No, I got that one. Anyway, the new room’s through here. Well, we asked Janet for two, but the other one’s actually filled with cacti right now, so I’m just gonna sleep on the couch for tonight.”

“Oh,” Eleanor said. “I mean, you don’t have to. We can share, I don’t mind.”

“No, it’s—it’s fine,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “It’s probably best that we don’t.”

“Oh,” she said again. “Goodnight, then.”

“Yeah. Goodnight.”

It _was_ fine, Eleanor told herself as she walked away. This idea she’d had, that things could stay the way they were forever, the two of them against the world, partners in all things… She had known better than to believe in that sort of thing, once, and now she knew it again.

Just because people couldn’t die or leave this place didn’t mean they were going to _stay_. It didn’t mean they would want to.

 

 

 

Real Eleanor settled in the neighborhood. Tahani found out about Jason. Subsequently, _everyone_ found out about Jason. An argument broke out between the people who wanted the frozen yogurt shops to offer holiday-themed flavors all year round and the people who very much did not. Michael, suffering from a crisis of confidence after his contact with the Bad Crew, decided to revamp his image and started wearing skinny jeans.

During this climate of change and profound instability, Eleanor made the decision to whole-heartedly throw herself into self-improvement. No more trying to skip out on lessons. No more catastrophes because she was falling back on negative behavior. No more tricks or schemes to get herself out of anything she found to be too much work. This was New and Improved Eleanor.

“Alright,” Tahani said, skeptically. “But I’m not calling you that. I’ll drop the ‘Fake Eleanor’ thing but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.”

“I’ll take it.”

Tahani looked her over from the corner of her eye and said, sounding like she couldn’t possibly care less, “You know, if you want to come stay with us for a while, you can. There’s a lot of room, we might even not run into each other at all.”

“That’s—Thank you,” Eleanor said, feeling inordinately touched at the offer. She couldn’t accept it, of course: the only thing that seemed worse than living with Chidi and Real Eleanor was having to explain _why_ she didn’t want to live with Chidi and Real Eleanor—and there it was again, progress, wonderful progress, when before she would have just left without dealing with any of it and not given it the slightest thought.

“Whatever,” Tahani said when Eleanor declined, though she said it in her classy British way, making it sound like another, fancier word altogether. “Does this New and Improved thing means you’re gonna help me plan Jason’s reintroduction party? He wants it to be”—here the British accent turned impressively disdainful—“EDM-themed.”

“Um.” Eleanor evaluated the moral benefit of doing the right, New and Improved Eleanor thing, versus how much she really didn’t feel like doing it. “I’m gonna pass on that one,” she decided on after a second of deliberation.

Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.

 

 

 

Eleanor had only poked out of her room for five seconds to grab something to eat from the fridge when Chidi came home. She looked around but of course there was no door or furniture she could hide behind. _Darn this minimalist house and its creepy clown paintings._

“Eleanor?” Chidi called when he caught sight of her.

She fixed a smile on her face and turned around.

“Chidi, hi!”

“Hi,” he said back.

“What’s up?”

“They’re showing Molly Ringwald movies at the outdoor cinema,” he said, “ _Sixteen Candles_ is about to start. I just came back to make some popcorn and see if you wanted to come.”

“Is Real Eleanor coming?” she asked, busying herself by rifling through the cupboards for the popcorn.

“I, uh, I don’t know.”

“She’s nice,” Eleanor offered bravely.

“Yes,” he agreed, looking puzzled. She kind of felt like ripping out his fingernails, a little.

“No, I mean, she’s _really_ nice,” she insisted for some reason. “She offered to go back to the Bad Place and let me stay, when Trevor was being all, you know. How nice is that?”

She found the popcorn and handed it to him. Their fingers brushed briefly. She jerked back and stuck her hand in her pocket. One good thing about the Good Place: women’s jeans had _actual_ pockets here.

He looked down, looked back at her, went to the microwave.

“She likes clowns, though,” Eleanor prattled on. “What kind of disturbed person likes _clowns_? Do you remember the ceiling in our—in the bedroom? Shiny frakking clowns!”

“I’ve been trying not to,” Chidi admitted.

“You can’t be soulmates with someone who likes clowns,” she blurted out.

He turned around.

“Eleanor—”

“You’re going to miss the previews,” she interrupted him, panicking. “Though, are there even previews in outdoor cinemas? Are there previews in _any_ cinema in the Good Place? There aren’t any ads on the TV, but that’s a different thing, don’t you think? Do you want me to go get Real Eleanor for you?”

The spoon she had been squeezing in her hand started vibrating like it was getting ideas, but she settled it down with a freezing look.

The microwave beeped.

Eleanor caught flashes of movement outside—snow, starting to fall down. She wanted to focus on that rather than on whatever was happening here. She had assisted Michael with the weather planning a while back, getting everyone’s opinion, finding compromises, and all that. Snow wasn’t scheduled for another week yet, she had thought, but maybe people had argued again and petitioned to move it up.

Couldn’t they be done yet? she despaired. Couldn’t it just be over? Did they even have anything to move on from?

They had held hands under the table, once.

“I’ll just go,” Chidi said, stiffly. He took the popcorn from the microwave. “You’re right, I don’t want to miss the previews.”

“Right,” she said, and looked at him leave. She couldn’t remember what she had come out of her room for once he was gone. She let herself slide down the wall she was leaning against until she was on the floor.

She didn’t _want_ to care, she thought angrily, about Chidi or about any of it. Caring _sucked_. It was scary, and difficult, and you couldn’t just turn it off once you started caring.

“Are you alright?”

Startled, she turned around and saw Real Eleanor, poking out from the alcove of her bedroom.

“Oh, yeah,” she answered belatedly.

Real Eleanor looked hesitant, but she eventually came down and sat next to Eleanor without saying anything, only resting her hand briefly on Eleanor’s shoulder.

It was surprisingly comforting.

“I’m scared of the dark,” Real Eleanor told her eventually.

“What?”

“That’s why there’s a glow-in-the-dark clown on the ceiling, I think.”

“Oh,” Eleanor said, only barely managing not to add, _Really?_

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but—there aren’t really any walls here, are there? I guess I didn’t think about that when I was imagining my dream house.”

“It’s fine. It’s a nice house.”

“Besides all the clowns,” Real Eleanor teased.

Eleanor felt herself smile back.

“It’s alright, you know,” she said awkwardly.

“What is?”

“If you’re scared of the dark. It’s alright.”

“Oh,” Real Eleanor said, surprised. “Thank you.” She lightly bumped shoulders with Eleanor. “It’s a bit silly, I know, but I suppose I can’t help it.”

“Do you… Do you like it here?” Eleanor asked, a bit tentatively.

“Oh, yes! Everyone’s lovely.” She looked blank, but only for a second or two. “You’re all so very kind. I know I make things difficult for you, I don’t mean to,” she said apologetically.

“I think I make things difficult for myself,” Eleanor admitted.

“Oh?”

Eleanor shrugged.

“I… I can understand that. I’ve spent my whole life fighting for something, it feels like, and now there’s nothing left to fight for, nothing left to fix, I don’t really know what to do with myself.” She looked up and smiled at Eleanor. “But what about you? I haven’t been too much of a disruption, have I? Am I a conscientious roommate?”

“The best, honestly. You know you don’t have to do my laundry, right?” Eleanor added, a bit guiltily.

They settled in on the couch and watched old sitcoms. Real Eleanor offered to make them some hot chocolate after a couple of episodes.

“Is it still snowing?” Eleanor asked her, bundled in a warm blanket, vaguely thinking of white landscapes and snow angels.

Real Eleanor made a sound of surprise behind her. Eleanor craned her neck and saw her staring out the window.

“It stopped snowing but… I don't think it was snowflakes, falling. I think…” she trailed off hesitantly, pressing closer to the window. “It looks like—like popcorn kernels.”

 

 

 

“I don’t understand you,” Chidi was saying, rubbing his hands over his hair in frustration. “You’re acting like I’m trying to replace you when you’re the one who keeps freezing me out.”

“You’re gonna be late to your date with Real Eleanor,” she told him.

He made an aggravated noise.

“It’s not a date! We repeatedly asked you to come! There is _literally_ nothing going on between her and me.”

“I don’t care,” she said defensively. “You can date her, who cares? Get married and have three dozen kids and a dog named Aristotle in your creepy clown house.”

“What?” Chidi said.

“What?” Eleanor said.

He looked at her. He was _always_ looking at her, like he was waiting for her to say something. Didn’t he have anything to say? Why did she have to be the one to make the leap?

 

 

 

Eleanor opened the fridge, and then started wailing until someone came out to investigate what was happening.

“There’s nothing to eat,” she whined at Real Eleanor when she came in.

“That’s alright, I’m not hungry,” Real Eleanor said, then frowned. “No, we’ve talked about self-care and not neglecting yourself,” she spoke sternly to herself. She looked up. “How about we go out for breakfast?”

“Sure,” Eleanor said, deciding to sidestep the whole talking-to-herself issue. “Chidi’s not around?” she asked, super casually.

“No, he’s meeting Tahani somewhere.”

It figured. They had been talking a lot since Tahani had found out about Jason, and Eleanor was all for that: the girl obviously needed some kind of therapy, and Chidi was probably the next best thing. Still. Eleanor ripped herself from a horror vision of Chidi and Tahani sipping tea under a gazebo while their children painted Van Gogh-worthy chefs-d’œuvre in the background, only to catch Real Eleanor looking rather melancholy herself.

That was just on the outside of enough! Eleanor thought. Chidi was a pretty great dude, and Eleanor really wanted to mush their faces together, but like hell were they going to sit here pining away after him.

“Buckle up,” she told Real Eleanor. “We’re going on an adventure.”

 

 

So the adventure was mostly breaking into one of the fro-yo places. They didn’t actually _need_ to break in—the owners let a key out for people who had a craving after closing hours, this being, you know, actual paradise—but Real Eleanor broke out some lock picks and got them in while telling a story about liberating some political refugees from a military prison.

Eleanor swallowed back all of her bitterness and insecurities.

“You’re pretty cool,” she said.

Real Eleanor smiled sunnily at her.

“You’re pretty cool, too,” she said, and even sounded like she meant it.

“See? Who needs Chidi or Tahani? We have a special bond. A special name-bond.”

“They’re both good people as well,” Real Eleanor argued uncertainly. “Since Tahani’s been fighting with Jason, we’ve spent a lot of time together. We’re friends.”

Eleanor felt deeply betrayed, and tried to convey it though her facial expressions. _Tahani?_ She was straight out of _Mean Girls_ , if one of the Mean Girls had been an accomplished philanthropist and, you know, nice. Whatever. It made sense in her head.

“She’s a lovely person,” Real Eleanor said defensively.

“Real Eleanor!” Eleanor gasped. “Do we have a little crush?”

Real Eleanor blushed.

“Really? I mean, she's hot and everything, but— _Tahani_ , really?” she said, and then remembered: “Oh wait, we’re friends now, it’s fine, let me try again: Tahani! Tell me all about it.”

 

 

 

Chidi was lying in wait for her when she came home.

“Can’t we talk?” he asked her.

“Talk about what?”

“About—about everything! Isn’t there anything you’d like to say to me?”

“No,” she denied stubbornly. “What about you? Got anything to say to me?”

“No.”

His nose twitched.

“There you go, then!” she said. “Nothing to talk about, see? So you can just—move on with your life. Eventually, you and Real Eleanor are gonna realize you’re made for each other and you can—you can be giant nerds together—and have super nerdy babies together—and forget all about me and that time you were separated from your algorithm-given soulmate because some random person interrupted your happily ever after.”

“Great!” he said hotly. “That’s just great! That’s all I wanted, ever since I met you! To be—finally—left—alone!”

His nose grew longer. They both looked at it, stumped.

“What’s happening?” he shrilled.

“You’re a lying liar who lies, that’s what’s happening,” Eleanor realized, giddy. “Wait,” she said, sobering up. “I’m not the one making this happen, am I? You are. You totally are! Is that the first one? It’s not, is it?”

He clamped his hands over his nose a second too late.

“I can’t believe it! All this time, you’ve been making me think I was responsible for stuff I wasn’t!”

“I have not!” he protested nasally, his hands still over his nose. “I’ve never accused you of anything I was responsible for! If you assumed you were the one causing it, that’s because you were most likely behaving badly yourself at the time.”

“I was _not_ ,” she denied.

Her own nose grew.

 _Frak my forking life_ , Eleanor thought, and hid her nose behind her hands.

“Ha!” Chidi crowed.

They must have looked ridiculous, standing there, staring at each other and covering their faces; Eleanor felt ridiculous, too. There was something small and ugly in the pit of her stomach, and she wanted it _out_ , that cornered animal feeling. What was she to do, if she couldn’t even lie to him?

“I hate it,” she told him. “I hate feeling like this.”

“Eleanor…” he started saying, wretched. He took a breath, and let his hands fall down. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to forget all about you.”

“I don’t know,” she said, shakily. “You seemed pretty happy to.”

“Is that about what I said in the restaurant? Of course I said nothing happened,” he exclaimed, looking harassed. “Nothing did!”

 _We held hands_ , Eleanor thought, dazedly. _You held my hand under the table_.

“I was the only person in the world you could trust! You had confided in me something that could be used to _literally_ damn you to hell! And if that wasn’t enough, I was teaching you about right and wrong! The very idea is so entirely unethical—”

She blinked. “Wait. Do you mean you would have totally hit that”—she stopped hiding her nose to point her thumbs at herself—“if it wasn’t for all that stuff?”

He gave her an aggravated look, threw his hands up in the air, and walked off.

“It does, right?” she called after him. “You think I’m banging! You want to get all up in that! _You want to do the vertical tango!_ ”

“It’s the horizontal tango!” he yelled back at her from the hallway. “Everyone knows that!” He then slammed the front door on his way out.

 

 

She found him in the bar—singular, which just showed heaven wasn't all it was cracked-up to be—, playing with the umbrella of his pink cocktail.

“This is usually the point where I’d pack up all my stuff while you’re gone and leave you a break-up note on a post-it,” she told him as she sat down next to him, “so this is pretty much uncharted territory for me from now on.”

He gave her a look. “We’re definitely going to table that and talk about how you deal with conflict later but, just so you know… It’s uncharted territory for me, too.”

She flagged the bartender and ordered a beer.

“I didn’t want to meet them,” he said abruptly once she was served.

“Who?”

“My soulmate. We were at Tahani’s house, and she asked me what it had been like, meeting my soulmate… And I realized I didn’t want to meet them, my actual soulmate. That it didn’t really matter to me where they were or if they were alone; if they needed me—I realized I’d rather never meet them than lose you.”

“Oh.”

“That’s when the fountain exploded.”

“I remember.”

He looked down, and took up fidgeting with the little umbrella again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing the words out. “I'm sorry I messed everything up for you. I’m sorry I made you kill Janet. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to be a good person.”

“Hey, you’re—you didn’t make me do anything, okay? And you’re… you’re good, alright? You tried to sacrifice yourself for me, that’s—it’s the most selfless thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“It is?”

“You’re not a bad person. Sure, you have some work to do, we all do, but you’re not hopeless. That time you used Jeremy Bentham to try and get me to service you sexually was pretty inspired! I mean,” he caught himself, “it was, you know, very wrong and beside the point—”

“I’m telling you, that felicific calculus thing was totally about sex, dude.”

He laughed.

“What about all the rest?” she asked him.

He smiled at her. “I don’t give a fork about any of it,” he said.

 

 

“You didn’t actually try to swear, did you?” she asked him later. “You were totally thinking the word fork, the _actual_ word fork in your head. You were, weren't you? You totally were! Nerd.”

 

 

 

It was some kind of town-wide moonlight picnic event—little fairy lights everywhere, soft music playing, people gathered in small groups talking quietly, drinking wine. Eleanor could see Real Eleanor giggling at something Jason was saying if she craned her neck.

She closed her eyes. It was still winter but the air was pleasantly warm, and the blanket underneath her was soft and comfy. She hadn’t gotten her flying lessons in the end, but she thought maybe she didn’t need them after all—could almost feel herself floating away—

“Hey,” Chidi said, and when she opened up her eyes she was back on the ground and he was standing close to her, his eyes asking her something, always asking her something…

“Hey,” she said. He lied down next to her. She had felt about to drift away just moments before, but she was tethered to her body now, to the ground, to his body next to hers, impossibly close, impossibly far away.

“Tahani and Real Eleanor, how do we feel about that?” she asked him tentatively. She felt somehow like they hadn’t had a real conversation in weeks.

Chidi hummed, pensive. “You know, it might be good for Tahani to have someone she doesn’t need to manage. Maybe dating will suit her temperament.”

“You mean, maybe if she gets laid on the regular, she’ll chill a bit,” Eleanor translated.

“Sure.”

It was nice, to lie next to him like this under the stars. They didn’t need to do anything; they didn’t even need to talk. She had offered something to him before everything had changed and it had been somehow the easiest and the scariest thing to ask out of everything that she wanted from him—for him to have her back and to trust her to have his—to be there for each other always.

She wanted to try. She didn’t want to play it safe or cut her losses; she didn’t want to hold back so she could save face later if it didn’t go well.

“I asked Real Eleanor to be my ethics tutor,” she told him.

“Oh.”

“She’s been—she told me she's felt a bit at a loss here, that she didn’t know how to contribute if she didn’t have anyone to help, so I thought it’d be—good, for her to have something to do. And I thought… I thought if you weren’t my teacher anymore… If you didn’t have to be the one in charge of teaching me about right and wrong and all that…”

“Oh,” he said again, quite differently.

She felt strangely vulnerable as she reached for his hand. All she could think about was that her palm was sweaty, and it would gross him out, and he would see that her hands were shaking. He would be able to feel how much she cared. She wanted to be loved by him so badly that she shook with it.

It was scary, but he was scared too: she saw it in the way he stared at her like he was afraid to blink, like he was afraid she’d disappear if he closed his eyes. She felt it in the way he grasped her hand, hesitant at first, then stronger.

He was shaking, too.

“I’m still selfish,” she told him, looking away. “And I don’t even feel all that bad about it.”

“I know,” he said. His voice had that warm note to it that meant he was smiling.

“And I’m lazy. I’m probably always gonna try to cheat my way out of doing the dishes.”

“I'll be on the look-out for that.”

“And sometimes when you’re going on and on about ethical stuff I stop listening to you, and you’re gonna get annoyed with me.”

“Probably,” he agreed.

 _You’re going to realize you don’t want to be with me and you’re going to leave me_ , she thought, but he squeezed her hand and pushed the thought at bay; it felt like he was trying to say something with his hand, and she was saying it back: I’m not letting go, I’m not gonna let go.

“I like you,” he said. “You _do_ know that, right? I like you, just the way you are.”

“I like you, too,” she said.

His hand was saying, _You’re not alone._ His eyes were saying it, too, and the quiet murmur of voices all around them, and even the stars in the sky; all saying, _You’ll never be alone again._

 


End file.
